The 1290 days do not begin before 2090 nor after 1374 [AD][sic]
The 1290 days do not [end] before 2090 nor after 2374 [AD].
(Corrected reading: see Newton’s Notes, #6 & #7)
Newton’s view as presented in the last installment (No. 14), theologians might recognize as the “amillennial” position, or otherwise known as “realized millennialism.” In this scheme, there is an ebb and flow between good and evil throughout history with seasons of good followed by seasons of bad. The Millennial Kingdom is spiritualized to run concurrently with the Tribulation, which too is demythologized into a general description of the current, indeterminate Church Age. There is no teleology to prophecy. This cyclical view is not resolved nor does it become the precursor to a final eschaton. The end of history is not a consummation, but comes as a discontinuous event.
As a Historicist, Newton obviously believed in a teleology to prophecy and in a literal Tribulation “period” which lasts, not the seven-years of the Preterist and Futurist schools, but rather a much longer period of 1,260 years as the first half of the “seven” symbolic years (3 1/2 years, 3 1/2 days, 42 months, or “time, times, and half a time”). Biblical commentators usually assign this period as one of apostasy, persecution, and general turmoil of human, if not demonic, instigation.
There is a second half to the seven years – often overlooked – which is characterized as a period of supernatural intervention in the forms of the various plagues, famines and calamities imposed upon the wicked human race. We have not discussed such a scenario yet in this series, although it has been hinted:
We have repeatedly warned that the Great Eschaton is not a “once and done” catastrophe, but one which may take centuries to play out. The Millennium does not begin as a placid and peaceful period, but one, rather, which is deadly, frightening, and full of hardships. Only a worthy remnant will endure until the “end.” The dawning of peace and plenty comes only through personal sacrifice and multi-generational obedience to the Mosaic Law as a blueprint for social order – the Four Generations necessary to cancel the effects of Original Sin.
– Stivers, Newton’s Notes #5
Logic would require that in the Historicist scheme there should be a second period of 1,260 years filled with various calamities from “off-world” causes: astral encounters (comets, asteroids, meteors), solar eruptions, and Earth lithospheric dislocations (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.).
We have discussed in previous installments that perhaps the 1,290 days (years) mentioned in Daniel 12 could possibly represent such a time-period of Divine judgment. That it is an asymmetrical period with an additional 30 years, it has been suggested that it corresponds to the “silence in heaven” of about “a half hour” (Revelation 8:1), marking a transition between the two halves of the Tribulation.
[Another explanation which could be considered would be the transition in Daniel’s time from the 360-day prophetic year to the current 365 1/4 orbital year. Over the course of 1,260 years there would be 340 “leap-years” or 340 days or almost one prophetic year.]
If the first half of this Tribulation period ended in 2016, then we would be currently (as of 2024 AD) in the 30-year parenthetical period (about a half hour) of the “unraveling” and destruction of the antichrist kingdom, which should be expected to end at the commencement of this geophysical and astrophysical catastrophe. The second half of the Tribulation “period” would begin with the proposed solar nova in 2046 AD and continue thereafter for another 1,260 years. . . finally ending in 3306 AD!
There must be a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, before it can fall upon the toes of the Image, and become a great mountain and fill the earth.
Newton, Observations, (Anidos) p. 78
The reader must appreciate, that according to Newton, the Book of Revelation is “episodic” but not chronological. For example, the Gog & Magog scenario described in Revelation 20 (an obvious reference to the Prophet Ezekiel’s scenario) is a recapitulation of the entire book, almost like an “epilogue.” There is a sequence within each episode, obviously, but every recapitulation must be interpreted from a different vantage point of the same age, the same “eon.”
For example, while the Millenarian (whether Postmillennial or Premillennial) might insist upon chronology based upon teleology – since reading the narrative requires a linear thought process – the Amillennialist (or realized millennialist) will believe that Christ’s Millennial Kingdom runs concurrently with the “Tribulation” period. This is because the Tribulation represents an era of apostasy accompanied by an era of Divine sanctions against that apostasy. As argued elsewhere in the Soteriological Model of Bible prophecy, cycles in human history do exist.
Consequently, while we might want to believe that the Christian millennial kingdom should begin in 2046 AD, it would still be an austere age punctuated by various catastrophes as God purges the Earth of all offending covenant-breakers. It would remain an age of “Gog & Magog,” with historical episodes of Armageddon-type conflicts in which roaming barbarian bands seek-out to plunder and destroy whatever enclaves of civilization which might still remain. This period would last for 1,260 years. There would be pockets of a righteous remnant which would enjoy the blessings of the Millennial kingdom – the “camp of the saints” – but they would be targets of attack by the reprobate.
The “camp of the saints” in Ezekiel’s version (Chapters 38 & 39) is one involving a peaceful land of “unwalled” villages which lures the hordes of Gog and Magog to an invasion, a problem resolved by heavenly intervention, and results in the “walled city” of Revelation 21:25 with open gates because “there is no night there.”
Contrasting the Amillennial view with the Postmillennial, we do believe that a shift occurs in the cycles after 2046 AD. While before, in the first half of the Tribulation, each cycle takes the human race downward, afterwards, each cycle takes us upward.
In our next installment, consideration will be given to a theological discussion of more current Postmillennial/Amillennial thinkers in which Newton’s laws of physics plays a more important role than his biblical exegesis.
As cited before, Newton says, quoting Daniel’s prophecy:
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all kingdoms and it shall stand for ever. (2:44, cf. p. 35)
But also, by degrees, as Newton notes in another place,
[After which] the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion, [not at once, but by degrees,] to consume, and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall, [by degrees], be given unto the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
Daniel 8:26-27 (Newton’s commentary in brackets, See Notes #9)
Notice how Newton believes that Christ’s earthly kingdom is put into force by “the saints” (not angels) and “by degrees,” not by one single event. There is progress and a goal to history. He views prophecy as a description of this redemptive process: the Moral Government of God.
— JWS, 11/16/24
